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Sleep Dentistry 101: A Complete Guide
The phrase sleep dentistry is pretty misleading, because in most instances the patient is not actually put to sleep. Instead, they are sedated just enough to relax and to take away anxieties that can arise with upcoming dental procedures. There are a few different ways that sleep dentistry can be performed, and which one is right for you will depend on your particular case and preferences. There are many people who suffer from a fear of going to see the dentist, and unfortunately many people will not go for years because of the fear. This of course leads to much bigger problems as small dental issues grow to become major complications.
To help patients everywhere keep their appointments, sleep dentistry includes three different handy methods for people to relax with: oral, intravenous, and inhalation methods. The oral methods involve taking a pill that is prescribed about a half an hour before the appointment time to ease anxiety. It is important to note that these methods do not provide pain relief, but instead provide anxiety relief. Oral methods are painless and are non invasive. When any type of sleep dentistry is used, the patient must be accompanied by another driver to make sure that they make it home safely.
The second method of sleep dentistry involves using inhalation. This method involves using laughing gases, or nitrous oxide, to sedate patients. Again this does nothing to reduce pain but instead will relax the patient. A small mask is placed over the patient s face so that they can breathe in the nitrous oxide to return to a calm state of well being for the appointment.
The next method of sedation that is used is the intravenous method. This method has the fastest effects on patients, but is the most invasive and the most painful, too. Even though the patient is not put into a sleeping state, many people do report that they experienced some form of amnesia. Many of them are under the impression that the procedure only lasted for a few minutes, even if it in fact lasted for an hour or more. This method might be difficult to use on many patients because many of those patients who suffer from a fear of the dentist also have a fear of needles! If you have questions or concerns about different methods of sleep dentistry, do not ever be afraid to ask your dentist for more information or for help implementing different methods to make you more comfortable.
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